Taught By Experience: Difference between revisions
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* Bruce Lee developed the philosophy-cum-martial-art Jeet Kune Do specifically under the idea of using your personal preferences over set forms and attacks. It is more of a training method. He believed that you should do what you feel is most comfortable and that if an opponent knows the set fighting style you have been taught, they have an advantage. In fact, for this reason supposedly there was at least one aspect that he deliberately never taught correctly.
** One of his instructors, Kenpo Grandmaster Ed Parker, was fond of teaching with this trope and even used it on Lee. One time when Lee was practicing a stance, Parker insisted the stance didn't work and showed him by repeatedly knocking him over with a wooden board saying if his stance worked, the board would not knock him over. Lee quickly let Parker show him an alternate stance to use.
** This applies to martial arts or any other kind of melee combat in general. Getting jumped for real and having to make someone kiss the asphalt before he does it to you is, for better or for worse, the fastest but potentially most painful way of learning what really works in a fight and what doesn't. Even for the rest of us who would rather not risk getting mugged or beaten to death, while the ring or octagon with its rules and referees might still fall short of what a "real" fight is like, full-contact, full-speed sparring against noncompliant opponents is still better than just doing drills and forms, because no amount of the latter will remotely recreate what it's like to actually face someone who won't obediently stand still after the first blocked punch and let you finish a complex choreographed combo, but will instead do his best to punch you in the face.
* The British Navy in the 18th and early 19th centuries put men off the streets aboard its ships of war and left it up to the officers to train them for sailing and combat. Likewise, midshipmen went aboard as children and were taught the requisite mathematics, navigation, and seamanship required to see them past their promotional exams by senior officers or, if they were unlucky, a schoolmaster or chaplain of some description.
* This is also why licensing for certain trades, including electricians, plumbers, and HVACers (at least commonly in the USA), requires one not only to pass a fairly lengthy test, but to have an already licensed master electrician, plumber, or HVACer vouch that you've had 2 years of apprenticeship working on the job under them. There're some things you can only learn by making that mistake on the job and having someone more experienced there to explain what went wrong/help you straighten out the mess/call the ambulance.
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